Special Requirements

Contents

Financial Management Systems
HHS Consolidated Acquisition System
Information Technology
Enterprise Information Technology

Financial Management Systems

UFMS Development and Implementation

The Unified Financial Management System (UFMS) is being implemented to replace five legacy accounting systems currently used across the Operating Divisions (Agencies). The UFMS will integrate the Department's financial management structure and provide Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) leaders with a more timely and coordinated view of critical financial management information. The system will also facilitate shared services among the Agencies and thereby, help management reduce substantially the cost of providing accounting service throughout HHS.

Similarly, UFMS, by generating timely, reliable and consistent financial information, will enable the component agencies and program administrators to make more timely and informed decisions regarding their operations. UFMS has been in production for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for over a year, with new functionality releases of Grants and IVR in October 2005 and eTravel in April 2006. The Program Support Center (PSC) implementation was moved to production on October 16, 2006.

UFMS Operations and Maintenance (O&M)

The PSC has the responsibility for ongoing Operations and Maintenance (O&M) activities for UFMS. The scope of O&M services includes post deployment support and ongoing business and technical operations services. Post-deployment services include supplemental functional support, training, change management and technical help-desk services. Ongoing business operation services involve core functional support, training and communications, and help desk services. Ongoing technical services include the operations and maintenance of the UFMS production and development environments, ongoing development support, and backup and disaster recovery services.

In accordance with Federal and HHS policy, the UFMS application is under an approval to operate through February 16, 2007 by the designated Certifying Authority and Designated Approving Authority (DAA). The UFMS application will be approved for operation for 1 year after this date. After October 2007, when all OPDIVs will be operational on UFMS, then a 3-year certification will be completed. This approval to operate assures that the necessary security controls have been properly reviewed and tested as required by the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). AHRQ requests $683,966 to support these efforts in FY 2008.

Administrative Systems

With the implementation of a modern accounting system, HHS has efforts underway to consolidate and implement automated administrative systems that share information electronically with UFMS. These systems will improve the business process flow within the Department, improve Funds Control and provide a state of the art integrated Financial Management System encompassing Finance, Budget, Acquisition, Travel and Property. As the UFMS project is nearing completion, the integration of administrative systems is the next step in making these processes more efficient and effective. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) requests $21,605 to support these efforts in FY 2008.

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HHS Consolidated Acquisition System

The HHS Consolidated Acquisition System (HCAS) initiative is a Department-wide contract management system that will integrate with the Unified Financial Management System (UFMS). The applications within the HCAS are Compusearch PRISM and a portion of the Oracle Compusearch Interface (OCI). PRISM is a federalized contract management system that helps streamline the procurement process. The implementation of PRISM includes the functionality of contract writing, simplified acquisitions, electronic approvals and routing, pre-award tracking, contract monitoring, post award tracking, contract closeout and reporting. Major functions include transfer of iProcurement requisition for commitment accounting and funds verification to PRISM and transmission of the award obligation from PRISM to Oracle Financials.

Benefits:

The following benefits will be realized by the Department and the individual OPDIVs/STAFFDIVs once the HCAS system is fully implemented and integrated with UFMS:

• Commitment Accounting.
• Integration to other HHS Administrative Systems.
• Decreased Operational Costs.
• Increased Efficiency and Productivity.
• Improved Decision Making—Unified systems:
  • Data Integrity.
  • Reporting.
  • Performance Measurement.
  • Financial Accountability.
• Standardization:
  • Business Processes.
  • Information Technology.
• Consistent Customer Service Levels.
• Refocus personnel efforts on value-added tasks.
• Knowledge Sharing.
• System Enabled Work:
  • HHS Acquisition Personnel—contracting.
  • Customers in requirement preparation—requisitioning.
• Meets Organizational Drivers and Goals (President's Management Agenda, One-HHS, Line of Business).

The HCAS team is working closely with the UFMS Program Management Office (PMO) and HHS PMO to ensure a smooth roll out of both PRISM and iProcurement. An integrated team, including personnel from UFMS, Acquisition and Assets has been formed to ensure maximum utilization of in-house expertise. AHRQ requests $111,035 to support these efforts in FY 2008.

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Information Technology

AHRQ has updated our Exhibit 300 to reflect final funding decisions. All Exhibit 300s will be available on or about February 19, 2007, at http://www.hhs.gov/ocio/capitalplanning/exhibit300/.

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Enterprise Information Technology

The AHRQ will contribute $423,278 of its FY 2008 Budget to support Department enterprise information technology initiatives as well as the President's Management Agenda (PMA) Expanding E-Government initiatives. Operating Division contributions are combined to create an Enterprise Information Technology (EIT) Fund that finances both the specific HHS information technology initiatives identified through the HHS Information Technology Capital Planning and Investment Control process and the PMA initiatives.

These HHS enterprise initiatives meet cross-functional criteria and are approved by the HHS Information Technology (IT) Investment Review Board based on funding availability and business case benefits. Development is collaborative in nature and achieves HHS enterprise-wide goals that produce common technology, promote common standards, and enable data and system interoperability. The HHS Department initiatives also position the Department to have a consolidated approach, ready to join in PMA initiatives.

Of the amount specified above, $112,096 is allocated to support the President's Management Agenda Expanding E-Government initiatives for FY 2008. This amount supports the PMA E-Government initiatives as follows:

PMA e-Gov Initiative	FY 2007 Allocation	FY 2008 Allocation
Business Gateway	$0	$0
E-Authentication	$0	$0
E-Rulemaking	$0	$0
E-Travel	$0	$1,269
Grants.Gov	$12,720	$13,101
Integrated Acquisition	$16,316	$16,814
Geospatial LoB	$0	$0
Federal Health Architecture LoB	$72,980	$75,205
Human Resources LoB	$610	$610
Grants Management LoB	$671	$1,325
Financial Management LoB	$1,021	$1,750
Budget Formulation & Execution LoB	$919	$1,041
IT Infrastructure LoB	$980	$980
Total	$106,216	$112,096

Prospective benefits from these initiatives are:

• E-Travel: The E-Travel Program provides a standard set of travel management services government-wide. These services leverage administrative, financial and information technology best practices. By the end of FY 2006, all but one HHS OPDIV has consolidated services to GovTrip and legacy systems retired. By May 2008, all HHS travel will be conducted through this single system and the last remaining legacy functions will be retired.
• Grants.gov: Allows HHS to publish grant funding opportunities and application packages online while allowing the grant community (state, local and tribal governments, education and research organizations, non-profit organization, public housing agencies and individuals) to search for opportunities, download application forms, complete applications locally, and electronically submit applications using common forms, processes and systems. In FY 2006, HHS received over 56,000 electronic applications from the grants community via Grants.gov.
• Integrated Acquisition Environment: Eliminated the need for agencies to build and maintain their own agency-specific databases, and enables all agencies to record vendor and contract information and to post procurement opportunities. Allows HHS vendor performance data to be shared across the Federal government.
• Lines of Business (LoB)—Federal Health Architecture: Creates a consistent Federal framework that improves coordination and collaboration on national Health Information Technology Solutions; improves efficiency, standardization, reliability and availability to improve the exchange of comprehensive health information solutions, including health care delivery; and, to provide appropriate patient access to improved health data. HHS works closely with federal partners, state, local and tribal governments, including clients, consultants, collaborators and stakeholders who benefit directly from common vocabularies and technology standards through increased information sharing, increased efficiency, decreased technical support burdens and decreased costs.
• Lines of Business—Human Resources (HR) Management: Provides standardized and interoperable HR solutions utilizing common core functionality to support the strategic management of Human Capital. HHS has been selected as a Center of Excellence and will be leveraging its HR investments to provide services to other Federal agencies.
• Lines of Business—Grants Management (GMLOB): Supports end-to-end grants management activities promoting improved customer service; decision making; financial management processes; efficiency of reporting procedure; and, post-award closeout actions. An HHS agency, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), is a GMLOB consortia lead, which has allowed ACF to take on customers external to HHS. These additional agency users have allowed HHS to reduce overhead costs for internal HHS users. Additionally, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is an internally HHS-designated Center of Excellence and has applied to be a GMLOB consortia lead. This effort has allowed HHS agencies using the NIH system to reduce grants management costs. Both efforts have allowed HHS to achieve economies of scale and efficiencies, as well as streamlining and standardization of grants processes, thus reducing overall HHS costs for grants management systems and processes.
• Lines of Business—Financial Management: Supports efficient and improved business performance while ensuring integrity in accountability, financial controls and mission effectiveness by enhancing process improvements; achieving cost savings; standardizing business processes and data models; promoting seamless data exchanges between Federal agencies; and, strengthening internal controls.
• Lines of Business—Budget Formulation and Execution: Allows sharing across the Federal government of common budget formulation and execution practices and processes resulting in improved practices within HHS.
• Lines of Business—IT Infrastructure: A recent effort, this initiative provides the potential to leverage spending on commodity IT infrastructure to gain savings; to promote and use common, interoperable architectures that enable data sharing and data standardization; secure data interchanges; and, to grow a Federal workforce with interchangeable skills and tool sets.

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Current as of February 2007

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Internet Citation:

Special Requirements. From: Justification for Budget Estimates for Appropriations Committees, Fiscal Year 2008, February 2007. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/about/cj2008/cjspecreq08.htm

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